


Rush

by fook



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gay, Rating subject to change, gay gay gay gay gay, spoilers duh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 09:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5043796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fook/pseuds/fook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t save everybody. But sometimes, you just have to let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rush

She remembered the rush in her ears. Whether it was the raging storm winds or the blood in her head, she wasn't sure, and she didn't care. She remembered the way the girl in front of her looked, so broken and helpless, a martyr of the times, pleading for an end to escape the tragedy around her. It was a suicide in the most selfless way. One death to save many.

She wasn't sure, but she thought she remembered a butterfly perched on the branch in her peripheral vision.

What Chloe asked her to do was impossible, just as it had been in that other reality. It was the only way. But it wasn’t. Max could feel her heart tearing apart. She could feel the criticisms in that dark, dark room echoing in her head. Beams of light fell on her over and over, her name called out in agony and anger. In a still room, faces stared at her. Voices nagged her.

“Don’t kill us, Max.”

“Max, please save us.”

“Why do you want all your friends to die?”

She couldn’t take it. The nightmare was real. She could feel bile in her throat; a raging headache began; blood poured from her face. This wasn’t the same. This wasn’t a normal nosebleed. She could feel the tears on her face, but her vision was tinted with red. The rain soaked her face and washed away the blood, but Chloe saw. Max couldn’t choose, and it was tearing her apart.

“Chloe, I can’t. I can’t,” Max sobbed. “I can’t.” She wrapped her arms around herself as her sight began to tunnel.

“No, Max,” Chloe said. “You’re the only one who can.”

But she couldn’t. Max stared at the photo in her hands and couldn’t find a way out. She’d tried so many ways, so many options, and they all failed. They all killed Chloe. This option hadn’t. She was here, with her, but the storm was still raging. What could she do? How could she really save anyone? If she let this happen, if she didn’t take the route that Chloe bid her, would Chloe resent her? Would Chloe hate her for killing Joyce? For killing everyone?

But Max knew she couldn’t live with herself after all these days of being with Chloe. This was why she had left and never looked back in the first place. What she felt was too strong. How she felt for Chloe would end her, or all of Arcadia Bay. Was this sacrifice Chloe’s, or hers? Max looked into the eyes of the only person she had ever loved, and knew that she couldn’t choose from the two options in front of her. She had to find another way. She had to.

She could think of only one.

“Chloe,” Max began, her voice ripping out of her body. “Chloe, I’m not going to do that.”

“Max.” It was a plea, a prayer. Max knew she couldn’t let Chloe think that this was her fault, that Max’s inability to choose was somehow on Chloe. It had been Max’s fault to put her here in the first place, to rip her away from fate. But if someone had to die in that bathroom to save hundreds of people, then someone would die.

“I’d kill myself before I let something happen to you, Chloe,” Max started. “I’d kill all the people in this town to save you.” Chloe didn’t seem to like where this was going, about to make another case, but Max stopped her. “But I know you don’t want that. I know you want to save Arcadia Bay. I know.” Max stepped away from Chloe, trying to get some distance so that she could make this final choice. “So I won’t. But I have to do something. Either choice I make, I hurt you. So I’m making a different choice. I’m making a choice that will hurt only me. I don’t deserve this world after how much pain and death and destruction I’ve caused it. So I’m going to fix it. I’m going to fix all of this, Chloe.”

“Max, I don’t know what you’re saying. What do you mean? This isn’t some Ashton Kutcher shit where you take yourself out in the womb, okay? What are you doing?” Chloe seemed hysterical, even more so than she had only moments before when she was talking of her own death.

“I’m not doing that Chloe, you know I can’t. It’s not like I have a sonogram anyways,” Max quipped, although she felt immediately that this wasn’t the time for that.

“Then what, Max?”

“Someone has to die in that bathroom.”

Chloe reached out, ripping the photo from Max’s hands before she had time to focus. “Don’t you dare rewind, Caulfield! Don’t you fucking dare! You’re not going to do that. Please.” Chloe held the photo to her chest, sobs racking her rib cage hard as she struggled to remain standing. The storm pushed hard, and Max didn’t think Chloe could keep pushing back. She moved over to her side, supporting the taller girl until they could get to the bench overlooking the Bay. “Please, Max, don’t do that. Please.”

“Chloe, if I go back, I’ll still remember everything that has happened. I’ll still remember this moment, the way you’ve cried, the kiss we shared, the alternate version of you that begged me to end your life. I know I’m not strong enough to live with that. To live knowing that none of this ever even happened. To live knowing I let you die. I’d go crazy.” 

Max paused, looking over at Chloe. She glared up at the sky, so broken and angry. Max wanted to fix it, to fix everything, but she couldn’t. If she could just fix this one thing, it’d be a miracle. “But you won’t remember anything. I’ll still be the best friend that ditched you five years ago and never texted you or, hell, even emailed you. I’ll be that girl that wasn’t there for you when your father died, and I’m still that girl, but I won’t get to explain myself. I won’t be the girl that loved you so much five years ago that I couldn’t even bring myself to maintain contact with you because I was so scared. I won’t be the girl that fell even harder over a single week while we traipsed around this stupid town with my magical time manipulating abilities. I won’t be any of that, Chloe, do you get it? You won’t miss me, you won’t mourn, you won’t cry. Hell, you might not even recognize me until the paper comes out the next day about how a student got shot in the bathroom. You won’t be the same. But I will. I can’t live with that. I can’t.” Max didn’t know when she started crying so hard, but hopefully it didn’t matter because of all the rain. And also they were talking about life and death and really did snot on her face matter? Honestly?

Chloe didn’t say anything. She only held her, Max’s face pressed hard into Chloe’s shoulder. They sat like that for a long time, until the brunt of the storm had consumed most of Arcadia Bay and moved further inland. Chloe watched it as she held Max, her gaze almost paralyzed by the thoughts consuming her.

“Max,” she whispered, then louder, “Max.”

Max sniffed.

“I don’t want to lose you. I love you too much.” Max only cried harder. “I never knew you felt that way, before. When you left and never talked to me, I thought it was because you didn’t want to handle someone who had been so broken. I thought you just didn’t care. I was so hurt, because I loved you. I loved you so much and it’s probably why I didn’t see the way you felt because I thought it was just my own feelings reflecting off of you. 

“I wanted to be mad at you for the longest time. I wanted to hate you. But when I saw you in the parking lot and talked to you in my truck that first time, I got so scared about how I felt that I acted like I did hate you. I know that I could never do that, though. I don’t think it’s in me to ever do anything but love you. I want to be as selfless as you. Watching you over these past few days, how you’ve used your power only trying to help other people, only trying to help me – well, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so pure. I know how hard you try, I can see it in the migraines and nosebleeds and crippling pain. You try to hide them. I think I’ve even seen you try to rewind so that you could avoid me. And since I saw it, I know it didn’t work. 

“This thing you have, this curse, it’s only hurting you. It’s only causing you pain. I don’t know why you suddenly have it, unless the universe is trying to teach you some fucked up lesson about life in a morbid, twisted kind of way. I can’t believe the shit you’ve been through. I can’t believe that sick teacher hurt you like he did. You don’t deserve this. But you definitely don’t deserve what you’re suggesting. You will not take the fall for me, not again, do you understand? I won’t let you do that. This isn’t weed. This is permanent. You can’t take death back, Max.”

“Don’t you think I know that, Chloe?” Max groaned, slightly muffled against the shoulder she was pressed in to. “I’m pressed against an immovable object while an unstoppable force barrels down at me. I don’t know what to do. I want to be selfless again. I want to sacrifice for the greater good. I know that’s what all of this has been. Something had been trying to teach me to let go, to move on. Every time I save you, things only get more fucked up. But I can’t. Why would the universe give me the power to change reality if it just wants me to let things be? Why? What the fuck?”

“I don’t know, Max.” Chloe held the girl tighter, staring out at the tornado as it ripped through her home town. “But the photo’s ruined now.”

Max startled. She ripped herself from Chloe’s embrace only to see the butterfly photo crumpled with water and dirt on the ground by their feet. As she reached out her hand to pick it up, Chloe’s hand slammed down on her arm with just enough force to freak her out. “Chloe!” she shouted. 

Chloe seemed surprised too. “I thought you were gonna rewind, Maximus. It scared me.”

Max stared for a second, straight into Chloe’s blue eyes, confused. Then realization dawned on her and she sort of laughed. “Oh,” she breathed. “To fix it.”

“Yeah.” She was breathless too.

“You don’t want me to.” It was a statement.

“No.”

Max could feel the anxiety inside her that was coiled up and leadened start to untangle and lighten. She knew that there would be issues after this. The entire town was getting destroyed. All of the people there might be dying, or dead. Including the friends she had made and Chloe’s mother. But right now, Chloe was here. She was looking into her eyes with such compassion that it made her lungs empty and her mind free. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew that as long as she was with Chloe, she might be alright.

It was with a rush in her ears that she ripped the photo apart. She watched it flutter away into the raging sky, a ripple in an otherwise cataclysmic event. And she breathed deeply for the first time in a long time. She couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t save everybody. But sometimes, you just have to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May have more chapters in the future. Depends. I'm an untrustworthy author and have a hard time writing consistently. I'm really sorry about that, but I do think reviews would encourage me. So if you like this little epilogue type thing, leave a comment and tell me.


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